


Sovereign

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Brave (2012)
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Pre-Femslash, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12898524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Merida turned a corner of the rocky cliff path. The seaside shrine of Áine should be just around one more corner, she thought, if she remembered Elinor's directions rightly. Merida herself had never been this way, but any young woman preparing to take on the responsibility of a Clan-headship and kingdom was all but obligated to visit Golden Áine's shrine at the approach of midsummer—She rounded the next corner and found a lovely woman about her own age standing before Áine's statue. The woman startled away from the shrine, staring at Merida.





	Sovereign

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sphinxvictorian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphinxvictorian/gifts).



> This wanted to be a novel _so bad_ , y'all. It might yet for NYR.
> 
> Thank you to rosefox—massive, _massive_ thank you to rosefox—and to Karios for beta work!

Merida turned a corner of the rocky cliff path. The scent of cool salt water filled her nose; the sheathed knife hanging from her belt thumped against her thigh, and the pendant hanging from her neck thumped against her breast; a wicker basket swung from her arm. The seaside shrine of Áine should be just around one more corner, she thought, if she remembered Elinor's directions rightly. Merida herself had never been this way, but any young woman preparing to take on the responsibility of a Clan-headship and kingdom was all but obligated to visit Golden Áine's shrine at the approach of midsummer—

She rounded the next corner and found a lovely woman about her own age standing before Áine's statue. The woman startled away from the shrine, staring at Merida.

"Forgive me," Merida blurted out, and retreated.

Once more in sight of the waves, Merida heaved a sigh. "Now what was that for?" she asked herself. True, it was pious and wise (Elinor always said) not to interrupt another at their prayers, and true, she had expected no one, but…

Such eyes. Such _eyes_ , blue as the summer sea. Hair as long as Merida's, though the woman was a little shorter—hair straight as arrows and dark as earth at night—and brown freckles vivid on pale skin. A light brown wool gown and an undyed linen kirtle and a dark brown shawl knit of fine yarn, all the hems damp at the ankles, and feet bare, as though she'd been wading before coming to pray—and such _eyes_.

Merida had dreamed once that she would marry someone with eyes blue as the summer sea. _These_ eyes, the precise hue and shape of them, with the sea-green hearts—and though she had not seen the person's face, somehow it is not a surprise that her dreamed-of suitor might be a woman.

"So she's beautiful," Merida muttered, clenching her hand around the basket handle. "So you had a dream and she matches it. What does that matter? You're to marry Fingal Macintosh or Eoghan Dingwall or Aidan MacGuffin, Merida my lass, and strengthen Clan Dunbroch's alliances with your wedding, and there's an end of it."

But there was not an end of it. Eoghan and Aidan were fine young men, but for other young women. Eoghan needed someone with patience for his daydreaming and distraction, and Aidan would be an excellent match for Merida if only she and he struck sparks together. As for Fingal… he best loved the face in his mirror.

She stared out across the sea to the north. The Northern invaders hadn't tried their hand at Merida's father's kingdom in several years—a worrying thought. Were they beaten, or testing themselves on others, or building their strength for something worse?

"And if it's worse, then it's down to me," Merida thought aloud, and wiped her wet cheek on her sleeve. Fergus Dunbroch could not lead from the grave.

She turned—Elinor's voice echoed in her memory: a princess, a queen, must always be dignified—and headed back to the shrine of Áine.

The blue-eyed woman met her on the path. "I apologize," she said, "for surprising you."

"The fault is mine," said Merida. "I fear I was lost in heavy thought and expected no one here. I'm sorry for disrupting your prayers."

"Or answering them," said the woman under her breath.

"I beg your pardon?"

"—Nothing," said the woman. "Please, do not let me keep you from your prayers." She waved one plump hand in the direction of Áine's shrine.

Merida smiled, and curtseyed, and—lost for words—walked on.

The Daughter of Manannán mac Lir resided here in a stone woman's figure half Merida's height, roughly carved in relief into the rock itself. Her feet rested on a rock shelf, where seashells and jewels were scattered.

In her basket Merida carried a jar of mead, which she took now and set at the base of the shelf, and a linen pouch. Elinor had brewed the mead with her own hands; it seemed fitting to her daughter that the princess-becoming-queen offer the work of the queen–becoming–queen mother, and Elinor had agreed. Merida had herself spun the thread and dyed it, woven the linen and sewn it, embroidered on it sun and sea and grain, all for this moment.

"Áine, Golden Goddess," Merida said, and stilled herself, watching Áine's stone figure.

A hint of salt-scented breeze brushed past Merida's curls, loose as always, as she searched for words she thought she had prepared.

(—Her hair—was it too untidy? Too late to worry, too late—)

"Áine," Merida said at last, "Who grants sovereignty over the Celtic lands—the right to rule rightly, as I must now rule rightly over the Four Clans. This I offer You—" She took the purse and placed it at the Goddess's feet, next to a shell gleaming with mother-of-pearl, and smoothed it down, and lifted her hand away. "The work of my hands and my head and my heart.

"I ask You now for Your aid," Merida went on, "for I do not know that I am ready, and I _must_ be ready—if we are threatened from the North or from the Romans or from too harsh a winter, I must have strength and compassion and wisdom to meet it. Please, Golden One, help me."

She paused, a long moment. Elinor had loved Fergus—loved him still.

"You are Goddess too of love," Merida said, "and I find I cannot love Eoghan Dingwall— _will_ not love Fingal Macintosh— _do_ not love Aidan MacGuffin. Truth be told, Wise One, choosing any one of the three above the others might well raise problems with the two Clans snubbed! I ask You, Bright Áine, for a solution—a way to escape this difficulty with Clan Dunbroch stronger and, if You will it, my own heart given to someone whose heart I can accept in return."

Not a likely thing. But surely anything was possible with a Goddess's aid?

Merida opened the jar of mead, and poured a measure on the floor beside the statue. "A drink for you, O Goddess."

She waited a long moment, heart drumming in her chest—

(In the stories, sometimes Gods spoke with visions; sometimes with words. Sometimes a scent on the breeze—the salt air filled the shrine cavern—or a prickling down one's spine or a _knowing_.)

—but no answer came.

Truthfully, Merida hadn't expected one; the way of things was as it had always been, as every story Elinor had ever told Merida said: the Gods' gifts came when _not_ expected, borne by people who knew nothing of what they brought. An answer to this prayer would come some other time, if ever it came at all.

"Thank you, Áine," Merida murmured, and closed the mead jar again, and put it in her basket, and left the shrine.

The blue-eyed woman was standing where Merida had been looking over the sea. Though the air was warm, still her hems were damp. "Oh," she said, turning when Merida's shoe crunched a stone against another. "Greetings, stranger."

"Greetings to you," said Merida, for lack of other words.

The woman hesitated, then blurted out, "Do I guess right that you belong to the clans of these mountains?"

"I am Merida, firstborn descendant of Clan Dunbroch." _And I'll be shooting for my own hand,_ she remembered saying, three summers gone.

"Ah!" The woman's hand leaped to her mouth; she'd startled herself, it seemed. She took a deep breath, then deliberately lowered that hand and curtseyed. "Princess Merida," she said. "Call me Cait. I would speak, if I may, to the Lord of Clan Dunbroch, and the Lords of the Clans who have allied under his banner. May I ask you bring me there?"

Merida looked out over the sea to the north, to the blue sky studded with white wispy clouds, unable to meet the woman's pleading blue eyes. "My lord father Fergus Dunbroch is dead."

"Oh," said Cait, voice falling. "My apologies, and my sympathy for your loss."

"I might take you to my lady mother Elinor," said Merida, "who rules as queen till Midsummer. But I might also ask," she said, turning to face Cait again, not quite hovering her hand over the handle of her knife, "what business you have with Clan Dunbroch."

Cait stilled.

"You are a daughter of the mountains," said Cait. "I—am a daughter of the sea. The very sea on which the Northern invaders sail."

Merida glanced down at Cait's gown's hems, still damp. At the marks of her steps, wet in the shapes of her bare feet on stone. Oh. _Oh_. The selkie kingdoms had little to do with those who walked the land—but if the North were a threat to the sea people, as well as to Merida's kingdom—

"Queen Aisling and King Berach of the Kingdom of Dúlamán seek alliance against the North," said Cait in steady tones, "and to forge that alliance they offer the hand of their daughter Caitríona in marriage."

Merida's gaze sharpened.

Cait said nothing.

"As a daughter of Clan Dunbroch," Merida said finally, "I can give you no answer before speaking to Queen Elinor. As a woman of your own age," she added, "I must tell you the three sons of Clan Dunbroch are seven years old. And the son of our ally Clan Macintosh is no prize, though you might find the son of Clan Dingwall or the oldest son of Clan MacGuffin to your liking."

Cait winced. "I've no wish to marry any man."

"I _know the feeling_ ," said Merida.

And stopped. _I am Merida, firstborn descendant of Clan Dunbroch, and I'll be shooting for my own hand._

_Break tradition._

_She's beautiful._

Of course, so was Fingal Macintosh. Beauty didn't necessarily mean compassion, or wisdom, or strength, or any other quality worth having in a marriage-partner.

"Once," said Merida, thinking the matter through aloud, "the King and Queen of Dunbroch hosted the Highland Games that the sons of Macintosh and Dingwall and MacGuffin might compete for the hand in marriage of the maiden Princess of Dunbroch."

Cait watched her, face composed.

"Only the firstborn of each Clan might compete, and the competition was to be set by the princess," said Merida. "And so the archer-Princess chose archery, and she as firstborn daughter of her Clan joined the three Clans' firstborn sons before the archers' targets."

"Did—she win?" asked Cait.

"Indeed she did," said Merida, "and by that act she won the right to choose her fate."

(The truth was a little more complicated, of course—but there would have been no visit to the woodcarver-witch had Merida not chosen _to choose_ her fate, armed with bow and quiver.)

"Oh," said Cait, and a moment later, "Oh! Do you think—"

Cait paused, and studied Merida, toe to head. Her gaze lingered on the curve of Merida's hip, or on the knife that hung there; on the neckline of Merida's gown, or perhaps the curve of her breast, or on the pendant that hung there; on Merida's eyes, blue (she knew) as the autumn sky.

The woman stopped, looked out to sea and breathed in the salt air, and firmly turned back to Merida.

"The Kingdom of Dúlamán would be pleased with a marriage-alliance with Clan Dunbroch," Cait said, voice shaking, "if it would please Merida Queen-to-be of Dunbroch to wed Caitríona Aisling's-daughter of Dúlamán."

Merida had not dared hope for this. Not quite. Not even with that long-ago dream in the back of her mind.

But now?

Smiling a little, she considered the possibilities of sea-people in war against people who came across the sea. (Sinking Northern ships beneath the waterline, unobserved. Boarding Northern ships without bringing friendly ships in range of Northern fire-arrows. Perhaps even safer sea-transport for resources and reinforcements? What else?)

She considered the possibilities of an alliance-marriage that wouldn't set two of Clan Dunbroch's existing allies at the third or at Dunbroch themselves. (Merida had three brothers, after all. Hubert could marry a Macintosh of his own age, Hamish a Dingwall, and Harris a MacGuffin—or whatever; three brothers, three Clans—and surely that would settle that?)

She considered the possibilities of wedding someone who was her equal in a way that few thought a man and woman could be—and felt herself blush, wondering how the wedding night might feel: a thing she'd never thought to ask when thinking of Aidan or Eoghan.

"As a daughter of Clan Dunbroch," Merida repeated finally, "I can give you no answer before speaking to Queen Elinor." She paused, and smiled. "As my own self, I've a policy not to wed someone who cannot meet three tests. First, that person must be able to match me in contests of martial skill. Second, that person must bring something to my people—strength, compassion, wisdom; something more than I could bring alone. And third—" Merida met Cait's blue eyes steadily. "—that person must be someone I can live with at least as friends, without making me wish every mealtime to beat them round the salle."

Cait said nothing for a long moment, swallowing hard several times.

"The second test I think I can meet," said Cait at last. "There is wealth at the sea floor, in foodstuffs and in metal borne by sunken ships, and Dúlamán might be pleased to offer some in trade to a new ally. As for strength, compassion, wisdom—those I hope I may show you I have, and can bring to your people! But my only skill that might be turned to martial use is witchcraft, and I have made little study of how to bring enemies harm that way." She glanced aside. "Curses are unladylike."

Merida laughed at the disgust in Cait's voice. "I do not care a whit for what is ladylike," said Merida, and she cast her gaze down at Cait's arms. "You've sturdy arms," she observed. "If you've steady arms as well, and sharp eyes, you could be a good archer."

Cait's eyes lit up. "I'd like to try." She paused. "It will take time, to teach me enough archery that I can match you at your favorite art of war. Or to teach you enough witchcraft, if you want to learn—if we want to learn martial witchcraft together—that you may match me there. In that time, do you think—do you think we could learn to be friends?"

Smiling at the sparkling summersea-blue eyes of the selkie princess of Dúlamán, at someone who might be the answer to Merida's prayers even as _she_ might be answering _Cait's_ prayers—and wouldn't it be glorious to find out?—the archer princess of Dunbroch echoed, "I'd like to try."


End file.
